EARLY YEARS ON THE STAGE.
Between eight and nine years ago, Mary Anderson made her _debut_ at
Louisville, in the home of her childhood, and before an audience, many of
whom had known her from a child. This was how it came about. The season
had not been very successful at Macaulay's Theater, and one Milnes Levick,
an English stock-actor of the company, happened to be in some pecuniary
difficulties, and in need of funds to leave the town. The manager
bethought him of Mary Anderson, and conceived the bold idea of producing
"Romeo and Juliet," with the untried young novice in the _role_ of Juliet
for poor Levick's benefit. It was on a Thursday that the proposition was
made to her by the manager at the theater, and the performance was to take
place on the following Saturday. Mary, almost wild with delight, gave an
eager acceptance if she could but obtain her parents' consent. The
passers-by turned many of them that day to look at the beautiful girl, who
flew almost panting through the streets to reach her home. The bell handle
actually broke in her impetuous eager hands. The answer was "Yes," and at
length the dream of her life was realized. On the following Saturday, the
27th of November, 1875, after only a single rehearsal, and wearing the
borrowed costume of the manager's wife, who happened to be about the same
size as herself, and without the slightest "make up," Mary Anderson
appeared as one of Shakespeare's favorite heroines. She was announced in
the playbills thus:--
JULIET . . BY A LOUISVILLE YOUNG LADY.
(Her first appearance on any stage.)
The theater was packed from curiosity, and this is what the _Louisville
Courier_ said of the performance next morning.
_Louisville Courier_, November 28th, 1875.
"We can scarcely bring ourselves to speak of the young actress, who came
before the footlights last night, with the coolness of a critic and a
spectator. An interest in native genius and young endeavor, in courage and
brave effort that arrives from so near us--our own city--precludes the
possibility of standing outside of sympathy, and peering in with analyzing
and judicial glance. But we do not think that any man of judgment who
witnessed Miss Anderson's acting of Juliet, can doubt that she is a great
actress. In the latter scenes she interpreted the very spirit and soul of
tragedy, and thrilled the whole house into silence by the depth of her
passion and her power. She is essentially a tragic genius, and began
really to act only after the scene in which her nurse tells Juliet of what
she supposes is her lover's death. The quick gasp, the terrified stricken
face, the tottering step, the passionate and heart-rending accents were
nature's own marks of affecting overwhelming grief. Miss Anderson has
great power over the lower tones of her rich voice. Her whisper
electrifies and penetrates; her hurried words in the passion of the scene,
where she drinks the sleeping potion, and afterward in the catastrophe at
the end, although very far below conversational pitch, came to the ear
with distinctness and with wonderful effect. In the final scene she
reached the climax of her acting, which, from the time of Tybalt's death
to the end, was full of tragic power that we have never seen excelled. It
will be observed that we have placed the merit of this actress (in our
opinion) for the most part in her deeper and more somber powers, and
despite the high praise that we more gladly offer as her due, we cannot be
blind to her faults in the presentation of last evening. She is,
undoubtedly, a great actress, and last night evidenced a magnificent
genius, more especially remarkable on account of her extreme youth; but
whether she is a great Juliet is, indeed, more doubtful. We can imagine
her as personating Lady Macbeth superbly, and hope soon to witness her in
the part. As Juliet, her conception is almost perfect, as evinced by her
rare and exceptional taste and intuitive understanding of the text. But
her enactment of the earlier scenes lacks the exuberance and earnest
joyfulness of the pure and glowing Flower of Italy, with all her fanciful
conceits and delightful and loving ardor.
"We could not, in Miss Anderson's rendition of the balcony scene, help
feeling in the tones of her voice, an almost stern foreboding of their
saddening fates--a foreboding stranger than that which falls as a shadow
to all ecstatic youthful hope and joy. Other faults--as evident,
undoubtedly, to her and to her advisers, as to us--are for the most part
superficial, and will disappear in a little further experience. A first
appearance, coupled with so much merit and youth, may well excuse many
things.
"A lack of true interpretation we can never excuse. We give mediocrity
fair common-place words, generally of commendation unaccompanied by
censure. But when we come to deal with a divine inspiration, our words
must have their full meaning.
"We do not here want mere commendatory phrases, whose stereotyped faces
appear again and again. We want just appreciation, just censure. Thus our
criticism is not to be considered unkind. Nay, we not only owe it to the
truth and to ourselves in Miss Anderson's case, to state the existence of
faults and crudities in her acting, but we owe it to her, for it is the
greatest kindness, and yet we do not speak harshly and are glad to admit
that most of her faults--such for instance as frequently casting up the
eyes--are not only slight in themselves, but enhanced if not caused by the
timidity natural on such an occasion.
"But enough of faults. We know something of the quality of our home
actress. We see with but little further training and experience she will
stand among the foremost actresses on the stage. We are charmed by her
beauty and commanding power, and are justified in predicting great future
success."
In the following February Mary Anderson appeared again at Macaulay's
Theater for a week, when she played, with success, Bianca in "Phasio,"
studied by the advice of the manager, who thought she had a vocation for
heavy tragedy; also Julia in "The Hunchback," Evadne, and again Juliet.
The reputation of the rising young actress began to spread now beyond the
bounds of her Kentucky home, and on the 6th of March, 1876, she commenced
a week's engagement at the Opera House in St. Louis. Old Ben de Bar, the
great Falstaff of his time, was manager of this theater. He had known all
the most eminent American actors, and had been manager for many of the
stars; and he was quick to discern the brilliant future which awaited the
young actress. The St. Louis engagement was not altogether successful,
though it was brightened by the praises of General Sherman, with whom was
formed then a friendship which remains unbroken till to-day. Indeed, the
old veteran can never pass Long Branch in his travels without "stopping
off to see Mary." Ben de Bar had a theater in New Orleans known as the St.
Charles. It was the Drury Lane of that city, and situated in an
unfashionable quarter of the town. Its benches were reported to be almost
deserted and its treasury nearly empty. But an engagement to appear there
for a week was accepted joyfully by Mary Anderson. She played Evadne at a
parting _matinee_ in St. Louis on the Saturday, traveled to New Orleans
all through Sunday, arriving there at two o'clock on the Monday afternoon,
rushed down to the theater to rehearse with a new company, and that night
appeared to a house of only forty-eight dollars! The students of the
Military College formed a large part of the scanty audience, and fired
with the beauty and talent of the young actress, they sallied forth
between the acts and bought up all the bouquets in the quarter. The final
act of "Evadne" was played almost knee-deep in flowers, and that night
Mary Anderson was compelled to hire a wagon to carry home to her hotel the
floral offerings of her martial admirers. General and Mrs. Tom Thumb
occupied the stage box on one of the early nights of the engagement, and
the fame of the beautiful young star soon reached the fashionable quarter
of New Orleans, and Upper Tendom flocked to the despised St. Charles. On
the following Saturday night there was a house packed from floor to
ceiling, the takings, meanwhile, having risen from 48 to 500 dollars. An
offer of an engagement at the Varietes, the Lyceum of New Orleans, quickly
followed, and the daring feat of appearing as Meg Merrilies was attempted
on its boards. The press predicted failure, and warned the young aspirant
against essaying a part almost identified with Cushman, then but lately
deceased, who had been a great favorite with the New Orleans public, and
one of whose best impersonations it was. The actors too, with whom Mary
Anderson rehearsed, looked forward to anything but a success. Nothing
daunted, however, and confident in her own powers, she spent two hours in
perfecting a make-up so successful, that even her mother failed to
recognize her in the strange, weird disguise; and then, darkening her
dressing-room, set herself resolutely to get into the heart of her part.
Mary Anderson's Meg Merrilies was an immense success; Cushman herself
never received greater applause, and the scene was quite an ovation.
Hearing, on the fall of the curtain, that General Beauregard, one of the
heroes of the civil war, intended to make a presentation, she threw off
her disguise, and smoothing her hair rushed back to the stage, to receive
the Badge of the Washington Artillery, a belt enameled in blue, with
crossed cannons in gold with diamond vents, and suspended from the belt a
tiger's head in gold, with diamond eyes and ruby tongue. The corps had
been known through the war as the "Tiger Heads," and were famed for their
deeds of daring and bravery. The belt bore the inscription, "To Mary
Anderson, from her friends of the Battalion." She returned thanks in a
little speech, which was received with much enthusiasm, and retired almost
overcome with pleasure and pride. The youthful actress, who had then not
completed her seventeenth year, took by storm the hearts of the impulsive
and chivalrous Southerners. On the morning of her departure, she found to
her astonishment that the railway company had placed a fine "Pullman" and
special engine at her disposal all the way to Louisville. Generals
Beauregard and Hood, with many distinguished Southerners, were on the
platform to bid her farewell, and she returned home with purse and
reputation, both marvelously grown.
After a brief period spent in diligent study, Mary Anderson fulfilled a
second engagement in New Orleans, which proved a great financial success.
The criticisms of this period all admit her histrionic power, though some
describe her efforts as at times raw and crude, faults hardly to be
wondered at in a young girl mainly self-taught, and with barely a year's
experience of the business of the stage.
About this time Mary Anderson met with the first serious rebuff in her
hitherto so successful career. It happened, too, in California, the State
of her birth, where she was to have a somewhat rude experience of the old
adage, that "a prophet has no honor in his own country." John McCullough
was then managing with great success the principal theater in San
Francisco, and offered her a two weeks' engagement. But California would
have none of her. The public were cold and unsympathetic, the press
actually hostile. The critics declared not only that she could not act,
but that she was devoid of all capability of improvement. One, more
gallant than his fellows, was gracious enough to remark that, in spite of
her mean capacity as an artist, she possessed a neck like a column of
marble. It was only when she appeared as Meg Merrilies that the
Californians thawed a little, and the press relented somewhat. Edwin Booth
happened to be in San Francisco at the time, and it was on the stage of
California that Mary Anderson first met the distinguished actor who had
been her early stage ideal. He told her that for ten years he had never
sat through a performance till hers; and the praises of the great
tragedian went far to console her for the coldness and want of sympathy in
the general public. It was by Booth's advice, as well as John
McCullough's, that she now began to study such parts as Parthenia, as
better suited to her powers than more somber tragedy. Those were the old
stock theater days in America, when every theater had a fair standing
company, and relied for its success on the judicious selection of stars.
This system, though perhaps a somewhat vicious one, made so many
engagements possible to Mary Anderson, whose means would not have admitted
of the costlier system of traveling with a special company.
The return journey from California was made painfully memorable by a
disastrous accident to a railway train which had preceded the party, and
they were compelled to stop for the night at a little roadside town in
Missouri. The hotels were full of wounded passengers, and scenes of
distress were visible on all sides. When they were almost despairing of a
night's lodging, a plain countryman approached them, and offered the
hospitality of his pretty white cottage hard by, embosomed in its trees
and flowers. The offer was thankfully accepted, and soon after their
arrival the wife's sister, a "school mar'm," came in, and seemed to warm
at once to her beautiful young visitor. She proposed a walk, and the two
girls sallied forth into the fields. The stranger turned the subject to
Shakespeare and the stage, with which Mary Anderson was fain to confess
but a very slight acquaintance, fearing the announcement of her profession
would shock the prejudices of these simple country folk, who might shrink
from having "a play actress" under their roof. Some months after the party
had returned home there came a letter from these kind people saying how,
to their delight and astonishment, they had accidentally discovered who
had been their guest. It seemed the sister was an enthusiastic
Shakespearean student, and all agreed that in entertaining Mary Anderson
they had "entertained an angel unawares."
The California trip may be said to close the first period of Mary
Anderson's dramatic career. With some draw-backs and some rebuffs she had
made a great success, but she was known thus far only as a Western girl,
who had yet to encounter the judgment of the more critical audiences of
the South and East, as years later, with a reputation second to none all
over the States as well as in Canada, she essayed, with a success which
has been seldom equaled, perhaps never surpassed, the ordeal of facing, at
the Lyceum, an audience, perhaps the most fastidious and critical in
London.